Emails from the so-called “Twitter Files” — internal communications shared with Lee Fang at The Intercept as well as other journalists following Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media platform — reveal that the company had knowledge of a U.S. military-linked information operation and did not publicly acknowledge the operation or provide transparency to the general public after the operation was discovered.
That appears to be a clear violation of Twitter’s principles about state-backed information operations as laid out by Twitter’s former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth in 2019. Indeed, Twitter made a point of disclosing the details of accounts, and the content of their tweets, when they were identified as part of government linked information operations, beginning in 2018.
Roth wrote, in a statement of principles that is still published on Twitter’s website:
We believe Twitter has a responsibility to protect the integrity of the public conversation — including through the timely disclosure of information about attempts to manipulate Twitter to influence elections and other civic conversations by foreign or domestic state-backed entities. We believe the public and research community are better informed by transparency.
Fang, in his article published on Tuesday, details how Twitter “whitelisted” — a function that provided accounts with invulnerability to Twitter’s detection mechanisms that might decrease visibility for accounts engaged in spam or abuse — a list of accounts provided by U.S. Central Command in 2017. The accounts engaged in activities including: touting the accuracy of drone strikes in Yemen, promoting U.S. backed militias in Syria, and spreading anti-Iran messages in Iraq.
An official working at CENTCOM promised that the accounts would be labeled as “USG-attributed, Arabic-language accounts tweeting on relevant security issues,” but many of the accounts subsequently deleted these disclosures and concealed their affiliation with the U.S. government after Twitter granted them the special status.
Over the years, some of these accounts have been deleted while others, such as this one, according to Fang, continue to operate without any disclosure of their U.S. government affiliation.
Fang, citing internal Twitter emails, found multiple instances in which Twitter senior executives appear to have been aware that the government linked accounts were still operational and, in at least some cases, acting in violation of the company's rules on platform manipulation.
Any further uncertainty, as well as concerns about potential embarrassment from a U.S. government linked information operation on Twitter, should have come to a head last August when the Stanford Internet Observatory published a report showing strong evidence that CENTCOM was involved in the creation and operation of a series of undisclosed government-linked accounts. “…[E]mails obtained by The Intercept show that the creation of at least one of these accounts was directly affiliated with the Pentagon,” reports Fang.
But even after the SIO report made a splash in the media, Twitter never disclosed the CENTCOM-led information operation on its page dedicated to disclosing state-linked information operations on the social media platform. For that matter, while highlighting state-linked information operations from Russia, Iran, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Spain, China, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Serbia, Honduras, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Cuba, Armenia, and Tanzania, no U.S. government linked information operations have been publicly disclosed by Twitter.
Roth, the former head of trust and safety, did not respond to questions about why the U.S. government linked accounts were never publicly disclosed, even after researchers from Stanford appear to have outed at least one of the accounts that Twitter knew was an undisclosed CENTCOM linked account.
Ray Serrato, a former member of Twitter’s safety and integrity team, told Responsible Statecraft that “this activity was disclosed to research partners — such as SIO and Graphika, whose research was covered by the media, under the criteria set out in public blog post here,” providing a link to a blog post explaining how outside researchers were provided datasets including “platform manipulation campaigns originating from the Americas, Asia, Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EMEA), and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).”
Serrato did not respond to questions about why Twitter, despite disclosing data about “this activity” to research partners, did not add the CENTCOM linked accounts to Twitter’s list of disclosed state-linked information operations.
Twitter, under Musk’s new ownership, doesn’t seem to have taken any more meaningful steps to address the U.S. government linked platform manipulation. No U.S. government linked operation has been added to Twitter’s list of government sponsored influence operations and, as Fang noted, at least one of the accounts linked to CENTCOM, while providing no disclosure of its U.S. government ties, is still active. Oddly, the new management appears to be following the pattern set by previous executives: sharing information about the influence operation with outside sources but not officially acknowledging the U.S. government led influence operation, taking steps to shut it down, or disclosing the extent or substance of the platform manipulation.
Musk, for his part, is under pressure to generate profits from Twitter after buying the company for $44 billion and may be increasingly dependent on his more profitable ventures, such as SpaceX, in order to service the debt on his Twitter acquisition. That could put Musk in the uncomfortable position of deciding whether to disclose U.S. government sponsored influence operations on Twitter when the U.S. government is one of the biggestclients for SpaceX. While the “Twitter Files” disclosed an uncomfortable chummy relationship between Twitter executives and CENTCOM officials, it remains unclear how Twitter’s new ownership intends to address ongoing U.S. government influence operations on the platform and how it will respond to Defense Department requests for special treatment going forward.
Twitter did not respond to questions about whether they will suspend accounts linked to the CENTCOM influence operation or publicly disclose the U.S. government’s role in platform manipulation in the same manner that foreign government-linked influence operations have been disclosed by the company.
Eli Clifton is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and Investigative Journalist at Large at Responsible Statecraft. He reports on money in politics and U.S. foreign policy.
(Shutterstock/rvlsoft)|Editorial credit: Ink Drop / Shutterstock.com
Palantir adviser Jacob Helberg (L) moderates a conversation with Palantir CEO Alex Karp (R) during a forum in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. (Screengrab via thehillandvalleyforum.com)
It’s only been six years since thousands of Google employees forced their employer to pull out of an AI contract with the U.S. military. At the time, it seemed like a watershed moment: Despite long historical links to the Pentagon, Silicon Valley appeared poised to shake off its ties with the world’s most powerful military.
But a lot can change in half a decade, as Palantir CEO Alex Karp gleefully reminded his audience in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday. “I historically would have been one that would rage against Silicon Valley venture [capitalists],” Karp said, joking that he used to have “all sorts of fantasies of using drone-enabled technology to exact revenge.”
Now, patriotic investors and officials are “coming together around some obvious truths,” he argued. In Karp’s telling, these principles include a realization that Western values must be protected against burgeoning threats from America’s adversaries in China and Russia as well as the dangerous “pagan” forces behind pro-Palestinian protests.
Karp’s free-wheeling presentation was the most entertaining of Wednesday’s Hill and Valley Forum, a four-hour-long event featuring a who’s-who of the growing defense tech ecosystem. But, rhetorical flourishes aside, the series of talks gave a unique window into the increasingly porous border between Silicon Valley’s most hawkish entrepreneurs and their ideological allies in Washington.
Above all, the two groups came together around their shared hatred for the Chinese Communist Party and its various nefarious doings. Panelists called for everything from slashing regulation of the weapons industry to fielding fully autonomous weapons, lest our enemies get a chance to do it first.
“Technology is moving extremely quickly, and you have your adversaries that are moving super quickly as well,” remarked Alex Wang of Scale AI. “We’re in a moment where we have to act really quickly.”
The conduit for this growing collaboration is Jacob Helberg, the event’s baby-faced organizer. In recent years, Helberg has shed his more conventional think tank background to become Silicon Valley’s man in Washington. He’s convened countless meetings between policymakers and tech leaders where attendees pitch policies to stick it to China.
Helberg now works both as an adviser to Palantir and a member of a congressional commission on U.S.-China relations. Some say this dual-hatting amounts to a conflict of interests given that he now “stands to benefit from ever-frostier relations between the two countries,” a claim that Helberg strenuously denies.
Some of Helberg’s efforts, like the campaign to ban TikTok, have already paid off. But he has his sights set on something bigger, according to the Washington Post, which reported Wednesday that the young hotshot has already started drafting an executive order for a potential future Trump administration that would strip away President Joe Biden’s AI regulations (limited as they may be).
Helberg’s convening powers were on full display Wednesday: Some of Washington’s most powerful politicians graced the stage, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), as well as Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who holds an important position on the House Appropriations Committee.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — who, you may remember, is currently fighting for his political life — took time out of his schedule to warn the crowd about the threat China poses to our very way of life. “We must make clear that if America and American companies lose, that means China wins,” Johnson said.
Even Donald Trump made an appearance, if only in the form of a brief, pre-recorded statement filmed on what appeared to be the ex-president’s private jet. “Our country’s going through a lot of problems right now, but we’re going to make it bigger, better, and even stronger than before,” Trump said, noting that he’d had a “very productive” meeting about AI with Helberg.
The day’s panels had an odd quality to them, possibly because none of the journalists in attendance were invited to moderate. Instead, the audience was treated to a series of largely unstructured conversations between politicians and the kind of people who can buy an island.
Graham warned the audience that Chinese cars could be little more than “roving spy labs” meant to gather information on American patriots. Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) argued that Americans will have to come around to the idea of AI drones that make “life and death decisions” because our enemies will surely do the same.
The growing bonds between Silicon Valley and Washington are “recreating a culture that says it is great to be American,” remarked Josh Wolfe, a VC at Lux Capital, adding that “we do have adversaries with malicious aims” that can only be countered with good old-fashioned American capitalism.
The funhouse mirror aspects of the event, plentiful as they were, are a distraction from the fundamental problem: A growing part of Silicon Valley is ready to unshackle AI from most if not all oversight, and Congress is more than happy to help them.
There is perhaps no greater evidence of this fact than the effusive praise Sen. Booker lavished on his fellow panelists, all of whom lead various AI firms. “Often unsung heroes are those that are the innovators and the scientists and those who are creating systems and opportunities that we now in our generation take for granted,” the lawmaker said. “You three are frontline players in ways that have me humbled and in awe.”
In a hearing of the House Armed Services committee today, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) pressed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about the potential harms' way that U.S. service members might be in while they work on the planned humanitarian pier project in Gaza.
Bottom line: U.S. military will be armed (they always are) and will have the ability and authority to defend themselves if they are shot at from the beach (ostensibly they will be on the pier that will be anchored to the Gaza coast). When Gaetz asked if there was a likelihood they will encounter unfriendly fire, Austin said yes.
More:
Gaetz: (Ms. Slotkin) just said there'll be about 1,000 U.S. service members operating a pier system off of Gaza. How many of them will have guns, Mr. Secretary?
Austin: Typically all of the deployed service members carry guns, and they have the ability to protect themselves if challenged.
Gaetz: If someone from land in Gaza shoots at our service members who are on the $320 million pier that we're building, you're telling me our service members can shoot back?
Austin: They have the right to return fire to protect themselves. Now, again ...
Gaetz (interrupting): I want to move to the likelihood that you think someone from land in Gaza might shoot at our service members on this pier. Do you think that that's a likely scenario?
Austin: That's possible, yes.
Gaetz: This is a very telling moment, Mr. Secretary, because you've said something that's quite possible, that could happen, right? Shots from Gaza on our service members, and then the response our armed service members shooting live fire into Gaza. That is a possible outcome here so that we can become the Port Authority and run this pier. Right?
Austin: That's correct. And I expect that we will always have the ability to protect themselves.
Gaetz: Don't you think that counts as boots on the ground? President Biden told the country that we weren't going to have boots on the ground in Gaza.
Austin: And we won't.
Gaetz: Okay, but you guys parse the distinction between... Like when Americans think boots on the ground, they think Americans in harm's way or engaged actively in a conflict. You guys seem to be sort of saying that boots on a pier, connected to the ground, connected to service members shooting into Gaza doesn't count as boots on the ground?
Austin: It does not.
Gaetz: I think you're gonna find the the American people have a different perspective on that. And if we're gonna have people shooting into Gaza, we probably should have a vote on that, pursuant to our war powers.
Watch:
keep readingShow less
Army mariners assigned to the 368th Seaport Operations Company and 331st Transportation Company construct a causeway adjacent to the Merchant Vessel Maj. Bernard F. Fisher off the coast of Bowen, Australia, July 29, 2023. (Photo Credit: Sgt. Ashunteia' Smith)
According to reports today, satellite images are showing that the massive U.S. project to build a pier and causeway to help surge humanitarian aid into Gaza has finally begun.
President Joe Biden first announced the plan during his State of the Union speech, on March 4.
The problem is it was supposed to be complete in "early May" but Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system is no where near being in place. In fact, according to this Associated Press report, an American military engineering unit is currently "training" to build the 1800-foot causeway, which is supposed to be anchored right off the Gazan beach, with another Israeli military unit, up the coast. The article doesn't say how the American unit is accomplishing this without boots on the ground, which was promised up and down and sideways by the Biden administration.
The U.S. Naval vessels are in place about 7 miles away in the waters between Gaza and Crete. They will first build a floating pier onto which humanitarian aid will brought from inspection centers in Crete. Then the aid will be shipped by vessels to the causeway and then onto a staging area on the beach. This is where this gets tricky. Supposedly the Israelis will be providing security on the beach and the U.N. will be delivering it into Gaza, but the project came under mortar fire on the beach last week and Hamas has pledged to "resist" Israel or any other foreign force brought in to guard the area. In short, the entire gambit has become a head scratcher.
Furthermore, according to Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, the whole thing is going to cost the U.S. taxpayers $320 million (in addition to the $26 billion approved last week) up front. This is quite a bit to swallow given that there are check points and ports in Israel that could be surging aid into the starving Palestinian population but are not. Nevertheless, officials say they still expect this to be up and running in "early May."
None of this has escaped the attention of even the biggest pro-Israel hawks on Capitol Hill. "This dangerous effort with marginal benefit will now cost the American taxpayers at least $320 million to operate the pier for only 90 days,” charged Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), in an interview with Reuters, which broke the story about the cost.
“How much will taxpayers be on the hook once – or if – the pier is finally constructed?” Wicker asked further.
“For every day this mission continues, the price tag goes up and so does the level of risk for the 1,000 deployed troops within range of Hamas’s rockets.”
Interestingly the pier is no longer considered a temporary fix. According to CNN this morning, "the ultimate goal is to turn it into a full-time commercial operation that can be used by other countries and non-governmental organizations."